Send a probe into the Sun? No.

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RetroGamer87
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10 Dec 2017, 3:07 pm

naturalplastic wrote:

So you are admitting that you have no argument? That you have "nothing more to say", and that what you have already said is pure nonsense, but you are clinging to it anyway?

Just because he has nothing new to say that won't stop him from repeating himself over and over again.

naturalplastic wrote:

you're saying here that "the probe wont do any harm, WILL probably get valuable information, and that there is no reason for any sane person to oppose sending this probe to the sun. But I am against it anyway because to me it's just icky."

Is there any argument you have besides the fact that (for some emotional reason that you cant explain) you find the project icky?

Not only will it not cause any damage, the information from the probe might help us prevent damage from the sun.

naturalplastic wrote:

This probe is a machine made of various metals, and plastics. Its of similar composition (iron, and carbon), and of comparable size (like a boulder) to thousands of natural meteors that fall on every body in the solar system every day including on the sun itself. So how is it worse than a natural meteor hitting the sun?

You've got him there. There's no possible way he can argue against that one. The final blow. He's defeated.
Down like Glass Joe.

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plainjain
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10 Dec 2017, 7:11 pm

I can't endlessly answer questions that I've already thoroughly addressed, to the same folks I specifically already thoroughly answered. You are welcome to read my entire posts, make an actual attempt at comprehension, and continue the discussion in a way that doesn't require me to repeat what I've already written.

I'm happy to respond to anyone who has something relevant to add, or discuss, though.

RetroGamer87
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10 Dec 2017, 7:18 pm

plainjain wrote:

I can't endlessly answer questions that I've already thoroughly addressed, to the same folks I specifically already thoroughly answered.

No one's asked you any questions since page 3.

plainjain wrote:

You are welcome to read my entire posts, make an actual attempt at comprehension, and continue the discussion in a way that doesn't require me to repeat what I've already written.

So do you think anyone who disagrees with your statements doesn't comprehend them?

plainjain wrote:

I'm happy to respond to anyone who has something relevant to add, or discuss, though.

In other words you're happy to respond to people who agree with you.

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Last edited by RetroGamer87 on 10 Dec 2017, 7:26 pm, edited 1 time in total.

kokopelli
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10 Dec 2017, 7:23 pm

plainjain wrote:

Since we are talking about a single space probe to the sun, suppose that you were the only human on Earth. How much damage to the environment do you think that your existence as the only human on Earth would create?

plainjain
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10 Dec 2017, 8:52 pm

Quote:

I'm happy to respond to anyone who has something relevant to add, or discuss, though.

RetroGamer87
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10 Dec 2017, 9:00 pm

^ That's ok. Your response is not required.

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kokopelli
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10 Dec 2017, 10:17 pm

plainjain wrote:

Quote:

I'm happy to respond to anyone who has something relevant to add, or discuss, though.

Wouldn't you say that discussions about how much that would actually pollute the sun are relevant?

plainjain
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11 Dec 2017, 10:10 am

Hello, Michael829. I hope you're having a nice day!

"Orbit" is a big place. It's notably big. Bigger than Earth, even.

In 1957, October 4th, the U.S.S.R. (Soviet Union) was the first to launch one, very small satellite into "orbit" around the Earth, known as Sputnik 1.

https://www.space.com/17852-sputnik-spa ... hotos.html

It probably seems like something like Sputnik 1 was so small, that it couldn't possibly do any harm to "orbit", which is so big. It turns out, though, that the launch of Sputnik 1 set off a chain reaction called the "space race".

https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/ ... space-race

As the chain reaction continued, and more and more very small satellites were launched into "orbit", which seems very big, there were collisions between satellites which, over time, created a lot of seemingly very small debris, which are now also in "orbit". Here is the way "orbit" looks now . . . the youtube video is NASA's:

http://stuffin.space/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JmVt92d5bd4

A person, not you obviously, might erroneously believe that because all of this debris is smaller even than a satellite, it is completely unimportant! A person might think that the satellites, and their subsequent debris fields could never do any damage whatsoever in something as big as "orbit" because they came from materials sourced on Earth, and all of the things that come from Earth once came from space. However, that person would be mistaken!

The European Space Agency has put out a detailed bulletin about it, saying the detection and tracking of space debris is of "paramount importance", since the debris endangers current and future scientific endeavors. Endangering current and future scientific endeavors is a cost/consequence of launching very small satellites into "orbit", which might seem to be too big to be damaged in any way by such small things:

http://www.esa.int/esapub/bulletin/bull ... bul109.pdf

On top of the danger posed to scientific endeavors by orbiting space debris, The United States Pentagon thinks that very small satellites re-entering the atmosphere are toxic, and could pose a danger to human health! They are so sure of it, that they launched a missile at one of those small satellites in 2008, from the USS Lake Erie, which is a navy ship, in order to destroy it before re-entry to Earth . . . even though Earth is also very big! I'm fairly confident that the pentagon thought all of this through before firing their missile, as missiles can be very expensive.

You'll also notice in the article, that a cost/consequence of the shoot down was that China expressed concern over the possible harm this might cause to other countries. This isn't a monetary cost, or a physical effect, but it's still an effect, and still a cost.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/TECH/space/02/2 ... shootdown/

I thought you'd be interested, because you mentioned chain reactions, and this is a good example of how a chain reaction progresses!

kokopelli
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11 Dec 2017, 1:06 pm

plainjain wrote:

The first collision between two satellites was in 2009. As far as I know, there haven't been any such collisions since that one collision.

And this has nothing to do with a space probe going into the sun.

drwho222
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11 Dec 2017, 6:12 pm

Michael829 wrote:

drwho222 wrote:

You do know that the surface temp of the sun is 5000 degrees yes? Any probe would be vaporized instantly there and pose no threat to the sun whatsoever. The mass of the materials of the probe is nothing to that of the sun.

We've been over that several times. I've repeatedly agreed that every time you get in your car and go on the road, you're taking a greater risk than any risk that the Parker probe would cause for you (If they persist in the abysmal poor-taste to launch it).

I've repeatedly said that there will probably be no harm.

In my initial post to this thread, I mentioned that the Sun has about about a million times more volume than does the Earth. I didn't deny that the Sun is larger than the Parker probe

As for something small affecting something large, I've answered that too. There's something called a chain-reaction, in which a small object, affecting at first only a small part of a large object, starts a process that soon propagates throughout the large object, affecting it considerably. Examples: 1) a boiling-chip dropped into a large pot of superheated water; 2)cloud-seeding. (...and yes, the ratio of masses is much greater in the case of the Sun and the Parker probe.)

Yes, I don't know of a mechanism by which that would happen in the case of the Parker probe and the Sun. But the probe is being justified by the fact that not everything is known about the mechanisms in the Sun. Not even by you.

As I said, there will probably be no damage.

And I'll remind you that my objection wasn't entirely about risk. I mentioned that there's something odious, repugnant, in poor taste, aesthetically-troglodytic about the probe.

But there'd be no point in trying to tell that to you.

But I'll repeat something that I said, in the post to which you were replying:

Quote:

So then, not only are we intrusively experimenting on the Sun, but then we're depositing our garbage into it.

So, you go outside on a beautiful morning, and say, "Ah, sunshine, trees with green photosynthetic leaves, and a nice solar-heat-generated convective breeze. So let's intrusively experiment on the Sun and dump our garbage into it! ".

Its impossible to damage a star by any means availible to humans. If you think otherwise you just dont understand it.

kokopelli
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10 Aug 2018, 2:23 am

The Parker Solar Probe is set to launch on Saturday. The launch window starts at 3:33 am on Saturday, just over 24 hours from the time I'm posting this.

NASA is concerned about the weather. That may delay the launch, but it won't halt the launch.

Fnord
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10 Aug 2018, 10:27 am

Just an FYI, for those who are interested...

The OP hasn't posted anything in 8 months, and hasn't even visited this site in 5 months.

I think we can rule out any further interest by the OP.

Op replies in 3 ... 2 ... 1 ...

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naturalplastic
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10 Aug 2018, 11:50 am

Yes.

I was just gonna say that both the OP (Micheal) and the other person that took his side (PlainJane) both stopped posting on WP about the same time -around the start of 2018.

Oh well.

kokopelli
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10 Aug 2018, 1:35 pm

I didn't know if they were still around. I just figured that since we had talked about the probe here, even if it was only the ridiculously silly issue about polluting the sun, this would be a good place to point out the launch.

A little over 12 hours to go now.

kokopelli
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11 Aug 2018, 3:49 am

The launch was scrubbed. They will try again Sunday morning.

naturalplastic
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11 Aug 2018, 4:27 am

We will have to do a human sacrifice, or two, to the Sun God (offer a beating heart or two from a top of a pyramid) so the sun god doesn't get angry!

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